Nokia 8 Sirocco features 2x optical zoom and Carl Zeiss optics

HMD Global has today launched the Nokia 8 Sirocco. The Sirocco is the new top-end model in the Nokia line-up and comes with a range of improvements over the original Nokia 8 which was only unveiled to the public in September 2017.

The most important change has arguably taken place in the camera module. Where the old model combined an RGB with a monochrome sensor in its dual-camera setup, the Sirocco comes with a secondary tele-lens instead. The main camera features a 12 MP sensor with 1.4 µm pixel size and an F1.75 aperture. The tele lens offers a 2x optical zoom and has a 13MP pixel count and smaller 1.0 µm pixels. At F2.6 the aperture is slower as well.

Dual-pixel AF is on board, too, and, as before, the camera optics have been co-developed in cooperation with Carl Zeiss.

The Nokia 8 Sirocco is built for rough conditions. Its front and back are 95% covered by durable Gorilla Glass 5 and HMD Global says the metal body, which is hand-milled from stainless steel, is a lot tougher than its aluminum counter parts. The device is also water and dust resistant (IP67 certified).

Like the original 8, the Sirocoo is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chipset and 6GB of RAM. 128GB of storage can be expanded via a microSD slot. The display has grown from 5.3" to 5.5" and uses now AMOLED technology rather than IPS, but the QHD resolution has remained unchanged.

The Nokia 8 Sirocco will be available in Europe from April for 750 Euros (approximately USD 920). Pricing for other regions has not been announced yet.

Comments

When the first optical zoom appears on a regular mobile phone form factor (so not the "mobile cameras" like Samsung K), I'll be pretty excited. Or I would be, if I knew about it. But with all these pretenders with twin fixed-focal length lenses being touted as *optical* zooms (yes even here on DPR), how will I ever know when the real thing turns up? What will they call it; a "real optical" zoom, or what?

they probably can do it with periscopic kinda technology as they have done it before (asus did it if I m not mistaken) but the implementation was kinda poor.i really wish apple or sumsung involve with this optical zoom thing.

I have had the original Nokia 8 almost since it's release and I've been quite satisfied with it, especially the very fast security and OS updates (I still miss having a notification led a bit and IP67 would have been nice).

This looks like a mostly decent refresh, although it actually does away with two things that caused me to buy the original Nokia 8 in the first place by adding glass to the backside and removing a headphone jack, so I think personally I prefer the original one.

(while the Sirocco appears to have a better camera, I take maybe a dozen shots with my phone in a month, as opposed to several hundreds with my dedicated camera, so a supposedly somewhat better camera is of little interest to me personally).

However, looking outside my personal bubble of preferences, I think this will sell quite decently, if not outstandingly.

Totally agree, my Nokia 8 camera is a great toy. The glass back and headphone jack kills the deal.

Got mine on special 3 weeks ago, I had a hunch they were bringing out the Nokia 9 but this Nokia 8 S is a different kind of side step. I simply cannot fathom that in a world of broken screens there are enough stupids to create such a large plush to this design choice.

With Nokia 8, the current camera application is quite unimpressive. Using the modified Google Camera application with their HDR+ magic sauce produces quite a bit better image quality, even though it doesn't even support the additional monochrome sensor at all. Maybe their recently announced "pro" camera application will do better once it's actually out.

(however, even with the modified Google app camera I think those placing a high priority for the ultimate mobile camera experience are better off looking elsewhere at least in case of the original Nokia 8).

No, my broken one is a sony. But i think no phone would have survived this accident. Meanwhile i have found out that the sirocco does have ANT+, but i wont buy it. 750€ is ridiculous for a phone, bought the plain Nokia 8 for halv the price just yesterday

No, it's two primes just like all the 2x 'zoom' setups these days. The primary camera has a 26mm equivalent lens with f/1.75 aperture and a large sensor with 1.4 micron pixels. The secondary camera has a 52mm equivalent lens with f/2.6 aperture and a smaller sensor with 1 micron pixels.

“The main camera features a 12 MP sensor with 1.4 µm pixel size and an F1.75 aperture. The tele lens offers a 2x optical zoom and has a 13MP pixel count and smaller 1.0 µm pixels. At F2.6 the aperture is slower as well.”

Perhaps you are right and it’s just the marketing guys trying to snow everyone. If so, then there really is no point in an article at all. Fake news I guess.

The first new Nokia phones couldn't deliver photography-wise and that's where they should have delivered. So I'm not terribly optimistic this will be good enough to warant a hih end price. For me, they will have to prove that they're back for good and deliver phones max. 4 weeks after they're anounced.

@Slapstick Noir, so true! I can't wait for this new gimmicky trend to die. Together with glass backs. These "features" are designed with one thing in mind: the phone must look neat on the shelf. They are crimes against usability that people somehow keep buying into, further increasing their popularity.

why are smartphone mfrs now offering only lower-rez 12mpwhen 16mp has been available for so long?

will IQ be better? (one hopes so)

hope the (Carl Zeiss) lens is good

as tiny Zeiss lenses seem only "okay" on Sony's much larger 1" sensor Cybershot RX0 fling it around "robust-cam"(wider-angle lenses are tough to do well; they suffer plenty of CA; so maybe a narrower angle can alleviate visible CA)

Sony is, and always was, pretty crappy mostly because of their image processing. I don't own one (my wife has an older sony), but you can have a look at gsmarena's photo comparison tool.And they don't have RAW in any phone, so you can't really tell if it's only the processing :) ... but from what it seems they just run a very aggressive noise removal destroying details and producing a blotchy overall image.

HMD has roots in Nokia (with HQ across the street) although the companies are technically unrelated. Nokia itself is a huge infrastructure company with Billions in revenue and 100k employees. They develop the infrastructure that enables your phone (regardless of which phone that is) to communicate. The market values the company at about $33 Billion USD. I think they are doing ok...

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